Social Penetration Theory
Explanation
Developed by Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor, Social Penetration Theory states that relationships are based on self-disclosure. As we self-disclose, we move from shallow or superficial information about ourselves to personal and intimate information through verbal and nonverbal communication, along with environmental behaviors, such as how close we sit next to the other person. We use depth, breadth, and breadth time to determine the different layers and stages of the relationship. For these relationships to continue moving from shallow to deep, we must use the norm of reciprocity and we use a trajectory to get to these stages, which start from the outside in.
If we picture an onion, the outer layer would refer this to the orientation stage. The next layer of the onion is the middle layer or the exploratory affective stage. Then comes the interior layer, which goes along with the effective exchange layer. And lastly, the core layer, or the stable exchange stage. Relationships can also go through depenetration. We use a reward-cost ratio to determine if a relationship is worth staying in or not.
Orientation Stage: The stage where you reveal basic of information about yourself (name, age, hometown, etc)
Exploratory Affective Stage: The stage when you start to learn someone's personality, sharing information that you'd share with most people but not necessarily everyone.
Affective exchange Stage: In this stage, we feel more intimate with partners and consider close friendships.
Stabel Exchange Stage: This is the final stage, your best friends and intimate partners. You feel the most comfortable in this stage and can predict each other's behaviors and feelings in this stage.
Depenetration: When there's tension or conflict and conversations tend to be much less intimate as they were before.
Key Terms:
-Self-disclosure: Willingly revealing information about oneself
-Depth: The wide variety of conversations
-Breadth: The value of the conversations to oneself
Breadth time: Time spent on conversations
-Norm of reciprocity: disclosing information of equal value to maintain the intimacy
-trajectory:
-Onion analogy: Using layers of an onion to show the different stages of a relationship
-Depenetration: When a relationship moves backward and conversations are not intimate anymore
-Reward-cost ratio: